I started a Robotech game earlier this year. I thought I'd share the tale so far so others may use it to generate ideas for their own games.

I started playing the Robotech RPG back in 1986. My friends and I came under some fire for playing DnD back then and moved on to Robotech since we were all fans of the anime. For us, it was the first “cartoon” that didn’t have the GIJoe “no one dies” attitude when stuff goes bad which at the time was new to us. We played for many years off and on.

Fast forward to 2006, I live in a different state from my rpg buddies (also my best friends) and decide to run a Rifts game here in Connecticut. Meet a few people from online plus two already known guys and we have a group of 6+ players and the group is still together. Just rotate between DnD 3.5 and Robotech now. Life always seems to get busy.

The group were all pre-made characters and everyone was in a Veritech (Valkerie) VF-1A’s, except one VF-1D which I put the group leader (experienced player) in with a new recruit (inexperienced player)

I kept things light for bad guys and the group got to “blow a lot of stuff up”.

Fast Forward to the Shadow Chronicles Era. Everyone gets together before March 7, 2009 game and writes up characters.
Characters:
Battleloid Pilot
Alpha Pilot
Military Specialist
Medical Doctor/Officer
Radio Corpsman
Combat Engineer

To avoid rank conflicts and focus on the game, I made everyone a 3rd LT and the nominated group leader a 2nd LT. All the character’s either study Russian or are descendents for this mission and speak the language somewhat. Also, they all needed to pilot a Cyclone since there are protoculture rations and full sized mecha would not be available.

The initial opening for their characters:

Earth 2045 A.D

"Thank goodness the Invid left." The Captain said to no-one in particular as he watched the Invid transform and leave the planet. Surrounded by other officers and aides, he was the center of one of the major command groups working for Admiral Hunter to re-claim their home world. Everyone cheered as they watched the exodus together and the command was given to stand down the Neutron-S warheads.

One of the junior officers was not cheering. He was trying to pay attention to a message he was receiving. After hearing it, he walked up to the Captain. "Sir, one of our ships reported seeing something strange over the ruins of old Russia. They're feeding it over to us now; I thought it best you saw it."

The Captain reached under his seat and pulled out an old bottle of Champaign. "Why don't you put it up on the main screen while I open this up for us all to celebrate?" All around him people continued to celebrate and congratulate each other. The junior officer was the only one not participating.

The junior paused for a moment as if he was going to retort but the Captain had stopped paying attention to him and had started getting glasses ready. He turned and went back to his station, following his orders. After a moment of work at his station the main screen suddenly changed from the immediate view of space to a grainy live-feed of the planed Earth.

The live feed zoomed in over the Eurasian continent and reached maximum magnification as it centered in on what used to be the country of Russia. In the center of the picture was something that made the entire room fall silent, with the last sound being the cork of the Champaign bottle flying off. When the Captain saw what was on the screen his cheerful disposition immediately went away.

"I'm afraid we'll have to postpone the celebration, folks," The Captain announced with Champaign running down the bottle in his hand. The crowd around him stayed silent and focused on the image on the screen. Finally the Captain turned to the junior officer and said "Contact the flagship. We need to inform command of what we've seen and coordinate what will be done about it."

Mission Two

The second mission was getting control of a cargo tanker in the Sea of Okhotsk that had some armaments added to it and it shot down a drone. It’s winter time, the sea is rough, and the ship has gone into a storm for cover……a blizzard to be exact.

I made a few mistakes setting up this game where no one had a protoculture type gun and only projectile firearms. The characters didn’t have the WP skills for the guns, so I made it a more rp’ing game. Not so much blowing stuff up. They captured some mercenaries, but a couple of them got away.

Military Intelligence and the documents they captured gave the location the cargo was headed for………Yakutsk, Russia. And in the cargo hold was a bunch of Southern Cross mecha.

Mission Three: Come to Mother Russia

Boy, did the heavy Russian accents come out for this game. The rp’ing for this was great and the goofs made with the fake accents just added to the fun.

One of the group has relatives near Yakutsk and is given the mission of finding out as much information about Yakutsk as possible. The second group is to set-up a base camp outside the city and prepare for the incoming diplomatic convey. While the craft (Horizon T) surveyed the area around the city, flyer were being tossed out to the local people offering medical attention.

The group is to escort the Captain to meet the leader of the city. There’s about 1’ ˝ of snow on the ground. The streets a pretty barren from the cold winter and the snow is just packed down in the streets, not plowed.

The group finds the town hall with the Captain and the mayor is waiting on the steps with his guards for the group. Just as the mayor begins to greet the group, the Captain falls and a report is heard shortly after. Everybody scrambles into the building for cover.

A sniper rifle is found with the one spent brass round. The players investigate and return to question the mayor. As the group approaches the mayor, they see him crumpling up a piece of paper and shoving it into his pocket. He’s obviously upset and scared now. He seems reluctant to talk to the group.

The group radio’s in to base and report to command what has transpired. They are commanded to lock down and wait for the incoming diplomats. The medic center is closed up and the group waits. The doctor was not happy.

6 hours pass and the diplomats arrive in another Horizon T. They circle the town tossing more propaganda out. The group watches in horror as the second Horizon T is taken out of the air by heavy artillery and crashes into the center of town.

The group races to the crash site with one of them take fall while riding in the snow (Cyclones).

more to come......

prinnycook

08-20-2009, 08:39 PM

How is the system I have always wondered how it is, I am a big Robotech fan.

michael

08-28-2009, 02:16 PM

Wow, your campaign is sweet.

Snuffy

09-18-2009, 12:39 PM

Apologies for not replying sooner, for some reason I didn't get notification of any replies.

prinnycook - I've played Palladium games for quite some time. I know there's corks to it, but I enjoy the system as much as any other. I'm more about the rp'ing & keep the game moving with the occasional hand wavium. My biggest problem with the game is between the damages by different caliber weapons and the mega-damage system. There's easy enough fixes for that too.

Michael - Thank you for the compliment!

The story continues with enough mayhem and damage. I'm not sure how much of Yakutsk is going to be left standing once this game gets going again.

WhiskeyFur

09-25-2009, 12:39 PM

-snip-

Man o man o man... this brings back memories.

Invid invasion era, shadow alpha/beta pilot that kept having missile issues... ended up carving out and building up a small 'Airwolf' style base in the grand canyon.

One of the comments I made: "I'm more scared of my /mechanic/ then I am of the invid. The invid don't beat you black and blue for scratching the paint..."

My mechanic = Freckle faced, irish, red headed gal with a temper to match her hair and a 10 lbs wrench always at the ready. According to rumor, she beat the snot out of an invid scout all on her own with that wrench.

I wasn't about to test her.

cigamnogard

09-29-2009, 07:26 PM

Very cool campaign - how did you get to do that to the maps?

Snuffy

10-07-2009, 09:34 AM

Very cool campaign - how did you get to do that to the maps?

For the maps, I've been using Google Earth to zoom into the spot. Then I do a ctrl-Print Screen, paste the print screen into ms paint (ctrl V). Then add text & what not with ms paint. Time consuming sometimes, but fun. It gives them GPS coordinates, elevation, etc which brings some fun to the game.

The Palladium systems has its quirks. Since everything is license controlled, the only way your going to have another system is if you homebrew it yourself. I'm too lazy to do that and like I said in the beginning, I'm used to the system.

Hopefully the game will restart in November.

The snow is falling heavy at night, what can be seen of the woods through the snow is dark & ominous. The Horizontal-T has a thick layer of snow covering the fuselage & wings. Looking back at the city of Yakutsk shows the city dark except for a glow of flames from the other side of the city. It is eerily quiet except for the crunching of snow beneath ones feet and peoples breathe of exertion from forging their way through the snow.

On the bridge of the Horizon-T, the pilot & co-pilot are busy with com chatter. Frequencies are being jammed, but the laser communications are uninterrupted even by the storm.